page_title: Phenakistiscope
section_title: Technology
hierarchical_section_title: Phenakistiscope / Technology
caption_attribution_description: English: A phenakistoscope (described in the display as a "Phantasmascope") with cards. On display in Bedford Museum.
context_page_description: The phénakisticope was the first widespread animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion. Dubbed "Fantascope" and "Stroboscopische Scheiben" by its inventors, it has been known under very many other names until the French product name Phenakisticope became common. The phenakistiscope is regarded as one of the first forms of moving media entertainment that paved the way for the future motion picture and film industry. Like a GIF animation, it can only show a short continuous loop.
context_section_description: The phénakistiscope usually comes in the form of a spinning cardboard disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed radially around the disc's center is a series of pictures showing sequential phases of the animation. Small rectangular apertures are spaced evenly around the rim of the disc. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the images reflected in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images keeps them from simply blurring together so that the user can see a rapid succession of images that appear to be a single moving picture.
  When there is the same number of images as slots, the images will animate in a fixed position, but will not drift across the disc. Fewer images than slots and the images will drift in the opposite direction to that of the spinning disc. More images than slots and the images will drift in the same direction as the spinning disc.
  Unlike the zoetrope and other successors, common versions of the phénakisticope could only practically be viewed by one person at a time.
  The pictures of the phénakisticope became distorted when spun fast enough to produce the illusion of movement; they appeared a bit slimmer and were slightly curved. Sometimes animators drew an opposite distortion in their pictures to compensate for this. However, most animations were not intended to give a realistic representation and the distortion isn't very obvious in cartoonish pictures.
  The distortion and the flicker caused by the rotating slits are not seen in most phénakisticope animations now found online (for instance the GIF animation on this page). These are usually animations created with software. These do not replicate the actual viewing experience of a phénakisticope, but they can present the work of the animators in an optimized fashion. Some miscalculated modern re-animations also have the slits rotating (which would appear motionless when viewed through an actual phénakisticope) and the figures moving across the discs where they were supposed to stand still (or standing still when they were supposed to move around).
  Most commercially produced discs are lithographic prints that were colored by hand, but also multi-color lithography and other printing techniques have been used by some manufacturers.
caption: A phenakistoscope (described in the display as a "Phantasmascope") with cards. On display in Bedford Museum, England.
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